Living a life of Thanksgiving.

"David appointed some of the Levites to be ministers before the ark of the Lord, to celebrate the Lord God of Israel, and to give thanks and praise to Him."

Here in this story David has just brought the ark of God to Jerusalem. The first thing he does is appoint priests to minister. Their job description: to celebrate the Lord, to give thanks to the Lord and to praise the Lord!

All day, every day, all these priests did was minister to the Lord. They stood before the Lord and celebrated Him. In other words they remembered what God had done for them. They recalled His goodness, His mercy, His favor. They spoke of His miracles. They remembered.

When was the last time you stopped and remembered what God has done for you. We celebrate a time of thanksgiving in the United States every November. It is meant to be a time to reflect on all that God has done for us. This should not just be a once a year thing, as good as that is, but instead we should be people who are constantly celebrating the goodness of our God.

As you celebrate Him and His goodness you can't help but give thanks. I remember the story of the ten lepers in Luke 17. They came to Jesus and asked to be healed. Jesus told them to go show themselves to the priests. As they went they were all healed. But only one came back to give thanks to Jesus. Jesus was shocked. It was offensive that some were healed but never gave Him thanks. It pleases the Father when we are thankful. I know as a parent I appreciate it so much when my children are thankful. It is no different for God. He loves for us to be thankful.

Finally the priest were told to give praise to God. What is praise? We throw that word around sometimes without really understanding it. It has ties to thanksgiving and celebration, but it literally means to go crazy with your celebration. It is the same word for rave. Imagine a rave type of party, except for you are expressing worship. Now I know some people will have a problem with this. David's wife had a problem with his expression of worship as he brought the ark in. David was basically "raving" before God. Some would say, "This sounds like the flesh, that's not very spiritual!" But I would say, God gave you your flesh, worship Him with it.

Immediately after David appointed the priests to serve he wrote a song or psalm of thanksgiving to be sung before the Lord by the priests. David had in his heart to give thanks. It was right after this that God spoke to David and made a covenant with him, promising Messiah would come from his line. When we have in our heart to be thankful to Him, He is going to bless you for it. Get in your heart to be thankful today. Live in Thanksgiving ever day.